1.2 Positive Reinforcement and Extinction Flashcards
positive reinforcement
give something good = happy,
positive punishment
give something bad = sad, response decreases
negative punishment
remove something good = sad
response decreases
negative reinforcement
remove something bad = happy, response increases
what are discrete trial procedures?
- single trial procedures
- measured objective dependent variables eg ‘time’ or ‘errors
what are the three important factors for reinforcement/punishment that you need to consider for effective conditioning?
immediacy/contiguity
contingency
value
immediacy/contiguity
- the consequence should occur soon/immediately after reaching target/goal
contingency
- consequence should occur reliably after reaching goal
- shouldn’t have access to consequence at other times
value
- consequence should be valuable/meaningful to the subject
what are the types of reinforcers?
primary rewards, activity rewards, secondary rewards
what are primary rewards and what problems are associated with them?
- things with INHERENT VALUE - food, sex, status, pain, fear, illness
PROBLEMS - heavily dependent on motivational state e.g. food loses value if you’re not hungry
- very contextual e.g. status is culturally determined
- poor contiguity e.g. high transaction costs, slow to deliver
what are activity rewards?
instead of giving an object, you allow an organism to perform an activity as a reward (e.g. free time if you clean your room)
what are the benefits of activity rewards? and what’s the main problem?
- no/little monetary investment
- reward is intrinsic (not usually determined by satiety, etc)
PROBLEM - highly situational: you can’t promise someone they can go for a run if you’re in the middle of a lecture
what is a secondary reward? what examples were used in the lecture?
- things that have ACQUAIRED VALUE BY ASSOCIATION with primary rewards, usually through CLASSICAL CONDITIONING
- pantone purple now associated with cadbury –> happiness, content, food.
- experiential marketing: beer brands becoming assc w buzz, flavour, fun times even without drinking the beer
- clicker training
what are the advantages/disadvantages of secondary rewards?
ADVANTAGES
* HIGH CONTIGUITY –> delivered immediately after a response WITHOUT ALTERING IT
DISADVANTAGES
* must be established first via classical conditioning (clicker training time consuming, marketing is expensive)
* can extinguish or be counter-conditioned
what is a token economy? why are they so successful?
- a system within which organisms learn to recognise a ‘token’ as holding high utility e.g. money
- high contiguity: can be given immediately, portable, low transaction cost, do not interfere w behaviour
- high value not subject to satiety: money can be exchanged for literally anything you desire at that point, meaning it’s not subject to satiety, whims, desires. it’s a UNIVERSAL REINFORCER
what is shaping in the context of behaviour?
gradually reinforcing individual behaviours that get an organism closer to performing the final desired goal - e.g. lady training dog to put paws in the box
what principle does shaping follow?
principle of SUCCESSIVE APPROXIMATION
* gradually making conditions of reinforcement more stringent + precise
* can produce novel behaviours not in the organism’s ‘repertoire’
what is response chaining?
complex behaviour (e.g. rat pressing a lever to get food) broken down into smaller sequential steps. Each step in chain is both a response to the previous step and a stimulus for the next.
e.g. separating (S) sight of lever –> (R) approach lever –> (S) feel of lever –> (R) press lever etc.
what is free operant procedure? differentiate it from discrete trial procedures.
FREE OPERANT PROCEDURE: organism can perform a behavior freely and repeatedly without any constraints on the number of responses or the timing between responses.
CONTRAST
discrete trial procedure: each trial is initiated and terminated by the experimenter, limiting + slowing data collection. less natural.
what is spontaneous recovery?
a response that was no longer occurring suddenly relapses WITH THE PASSAGE OF TIME
what is renewal?
an extinguished response relapses due to a CHANGE IN CONTEXT
what is reinstatement?
encountering the Outcome can trigger a relapse of the extinguished response
what is stress-induced reinstatement
encountering a strong stressor can trigger a relapse of the extinguished response; especially in drugs/addiction
an operant response reinforced with a partial reinforcement is typically… why is this the case?
more vigorous
more resistant to extinction
BECAUSE…
* it doesn’t mean interrupting the action every time to deliver the consequence, unlike consistent reinforcement
* takes longer to notice when consequence no longer occurs
* persistence
what is partial reinforcement?
when a response is only rewarded intermittently, not every single time
